North Archives - PATA Sustainability & Social Responsibility

Aug

What is climate gentrification?

Categories: Americas, North, People and Places, Recommended Reading

Tags: climate change, climate gentrification, economical, Environmental, Oakland, Recommended Reading, social, sustainable cities

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From New York’s High Line park to new affordable housing in Oakland, a debate over the accessibility of green design has taken root. Credit: Shutterstock/Stuart Monk

In East Oakland, a few blocks from the home of the champion Golden State Warriors basketball team, a series of geometric buildings and well-tended green spaces cut a striking contrast to the overgrown vacant lots, industrial equipment yards and aging corner stores that dot the neighborhood.

Tassafaronga Village, a six-year-old, $52.8 million LEED Gold housing redevelopment project, is also an example of the tradeoffs that can emerge in the push to make cities more sustainable — not just environmentally, but also socially and economically.

From Miami to New York, Houston to Oakland, the term “climate gentrification” is on the rise.

Learn about climate gentrification here:

By Lauren Hepler on GreenBiz

Dec

New bird species and giraffe under threat – IUCN Red List

Categories: Americas, Fauna, North, Recommended Reading, Wildlife

Tags: Conservation, habitat, IUCN, Red List, Species, Sustainability, Sustainable Tourism

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Photo credits: D. McCoy

The giraffe (Giraffa camelopardalis) is now threatened with extinction.

Photo credits: IUCN Photo Library, Alicia Wirz

Spring wild oat (Avena fatua) is among the crop wild relative species assessed for this update.

Photo credits: Stephane

Cancun, Mexico, 8 December 2016 (IUCN) – Over 700 newly recognised bird species have been assessed for the latest update of The IUCN Red List of Threatened SpeciesTM, and 11% of them are threatened with extinction. The update also reveals a devastating decline for the giraffe, driven by habitat loss, civil unrest and illegal hunting. The global giraffe population has plummeted by up to 40% over the last 30 years, and the species has been listed as Vulnerable on the IUCN Red List. – By IUCN. Read more.

Dec

No Child Sleeps Outside: Order a burger, round up your bill, help homeless children

Categories: North, Recommended Reading

Tags: Change for Charity, No Child Sleep Outside, Sustainability, The Seattle Times

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Dick’s Drive-In vice president Jasmine Donovan, Dick Spady’s granddaughter. (Lauren Stelling)

The family of Dick’s Drive-In founder Dick Spady is building upon his “Change for Charity” boxes, bringing in millions of dollars for Mary’s Place, just by asking people to round up.

Before he died last January, Richard “Dick” Spady used to tell his grandchildren about his early days in Seattle — the time after the Korean War and before the Deluxe burger that would make his a household name. Nicole Brodeur. Read more.

Nov

This restaurant uses invasive species for its sustainable sushi

Categories: Americas, Culinary Travel, North, Recommended Reading, Wildlife

Tags: green food, Invasive Species, sushi, sustainable food

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© Miya’s Sushi

The rise of sushi as a cuisine with global reach has accelerated in recent years. In many metropolitan areas, you may even find pre-made sushi takeout in supermarkets. This growth in sushi’s popularity has resulted in an enormous and unsustainable strain on marine wildlife populations, food safety concerns, and even sushi fraud at restaurants. No wonder many conscientious sushi-lovers are either cutting back or foregoing sushi altogether. By Kimberly Mok. Read more.

Jan

Turning Landfills and Cleantech Facilities into a Tourist Attraction

Categories: Americas, Asia, Attractions, Chemical, Climate, East, Energy, Entrepreneurship, Innovation, Land, Management, North, Planet, Private Sector, Public Sector, Return, West

Tags: binyamina, China, clean energy, cleantech, green energy, hangzhou, Hiriya, Hudson River, israel, landfill, nature parks, New York, Singapore, solar garden

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As the tourist industry is looking for new attractions, and with tourists’ growing awareness of environmental issues of tourists, new kind of attractions are popping up: landfills and cleantech facilities.

A few places around the world have transformed former landfills into nature parks. The Hiriya Center for Environmental Education in Israel, for example, attracts domestic and international tourists as well as professional visitors. Another example is the former landfill in Hangzhou, China, where tourists can visit its trash-to-gas power plant, play environmental video games, and hike in an eco-park the size of 10 football fields.

Cleantech facilities also serve as a tourist attraction that educate and offer experiential activities. The Solar Garden in Binyamina, Israel, is one such an educational initiative designed to promote awareness and use of green energy sources and environmental technologies (CleanTech) amongst the Israeli public. It was intentionally built in a place easily accessible with public transportation.

Another example is the Singapore National Water Agency’s NEWater Visitor Centre that promises a fun-filled and enriching time for all its guests with its free daily tours and educational workshops. There, one can learn of the water treatment and water planning of technological Singapore.

One particularly innovative attraction is the Pool+ project in Manhattan, which will be a floating pool in the Hudson River that would filter the river’s water through the pool walls, making it possible for New Yorkers and visitors to swim in clean river water, with pool fees helping to clean the river. This unique pool is thus a water filtration plant and a visitor attraction.

So what can you do? In addition to visiting and spreading the word about such attractions, if you have cleantech facilities in your hotel/lodge, share this information with the guests and make it an educational experience for them.

Remember to share it with us, too!

Jan

Terrorism’s Aggressive and Passive War on Tourism

Categories: Academia, Americas, Europe, Management, Manual, North, Planning, Risk Management, Tourism Resilience, Tourism Safety & Security Issues, West

Tags: security, Terror attack, terrorism, tourism security

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The multiple recent terrorist attacks in diverse places such as London and California ought to be a warning to the tourism industry that it is entering into a new and dangerous age. In the past, most tourism centers assumed that either they would not be targets of a terrorism attack or that the attack would be against a highly specific and well-known target. Classically it was assumed that we could almost predict which areas would be most prone to terrorism attacks. The prevailing paradigm argued that terrorists were most likely to strike locations that were high on the following scales:

They were centers where a great deal of economic damage would occur.
They were centers could generate mass casualties
They were places that had some form of iconic significance
They were places that were most likely to be covered by the media.

Scholars and security specialists based this paradigm on attacks such as those in New York, London, and Madrid. The security and tourism industries however did not consider locations such as in the Middle East as being relevant to tourism. Both the multiple incidents in Europe and the United States creates enough anomalies to cause tourism scholars and practitioners to question if the former paradigm does not need revisions and updating. Tourism Tidbits presents this month some of the new realities that tourism professionals need to consider.

Ghost deer haunt New York cold war bomb site under threat from developers

Categories: Americas, Attractions, Fauna, Flora, Land, North, Planet, Recommended Reading, Visitors, Wildlife, Wildlife

Tags: New York, responsible development, tourism benefits, Wildlife Tourism

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Group proposes turning the old depot into a world-class tourist attraction to show off both its rich military history and its unusual wildlife.

November 15 2015 – Hundreds of ghostly white deer roaming among overgrown munitions bunkers at a sprawling former US army weapons depot face an uncertain future, after living and breeding largely undisturbed since the middle of last century. Associated Press in Romulus, New York. Read more.

Oct

Canada’s aboriginal tourism: It doesn’t get much more traditional than this

Categories: Accessibility, Americas, Attractions, Community, Cultural Heritage, Intercultural Dialogue, Marketing, North, People and Places, Planet, Recommended Reading, Visitors

Tags: aboriginal tourism, Canada, cultural heritage

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October 26 2015 – It’s a chilly evening in late March and I’m standing inside the traditional wooden longhouse at the Hôtel-Musée Premières Nations in Wendake, Que., a cup of tart rhubarb cordial in my hand. Despite the cold it’s cozy in the dim space and the longhouse sleeping platforms look inviting, but I’m not here to stay tonight. Kat Tancock Read more.

Oct

JetBlue sprouts a potato farm at New York JFK

Categories: Americas, Case Study, Entrepreneurship, Fauna, Flora, Infrastructure, Innovation, North, Operations, Planet, Planning, Recommended Reading, Transportation, Visitors

Tags: Airport, farming, Food, green initiative, Nature, Sustainable Travel

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October 8 2015 – Designed to promote New York agriculture and add a bit more green space to the airport, the 24,000-square-foot T5 farm is growing produce, herbs and the same blue potatoes used to make the Terra Blues potato chips JetBlue offers year-round as complimentary snacks to passengers during flights. Harriet Baskas Read more.

Aug

Sustainable Style and Design in Hotels

Categories: Accommodations, Blog Posts, Central, East, North

Tags: Boutique Stadthalle, Coca Cola, Design, EKOCYCLE, FSC, green hotelier, Hotel Skyler, hotels, Hyatt Regency Minneapolis, interior design, international tourism partnership, ITP, Miniwiz, Minneapolis, style, supply chain, Syracuse, Taipei, Technology, upcycle, upcycling, Vienna, Will.i.am

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Siobhan O’Neill, Editor, Green Hotelier

by Siobhan O’Neill, Editor, Green Hotelier

Disclaimer: The views, opinions and positions expressed by the author(s) and those providing comments on these blogs are theirs alone, and do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions or positions of the Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA) or any employee thereof. We make no representations as to accuracy, completeness, timeliness, suitability or validity of any information presented by individual authors and/or commenters on our blogs and will not be liable for any errors, omissions, or delays in this information or any losses, injuries or damages arising from its display or use.

How can hotels offer guests a luxury experience but also make rooms sustainable?

The drive to increase sustainability in hotels is growing year on year. The responsibility case for properties to demonstrate good environmental practice has been proved beyond argument and now they have the bottom line figures to prove the business case as well. But focus is invariably on good energy, water and waste stewardship whilst preserving the guest’s in-room experience. Going forward, if hotels want to continue to reap the rewards of sustainable practice, they may have to build it into the fabric of their rooms. Read more

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